


Shell Game

by Juli



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 08:15:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2766053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juli/pseuds/Juli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam hopes he knows his brother as well as he thinks he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shell Game

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 1-4-1-09

Sam knew he’d fallen asleep in the normal way. They’d been in yet another crummy motel, sharing a king-sized bed. Dean had been curled up with Sam, half pillowed on him, and their legs were tangled together. It was a position with a history that pre-dated Dean’s sojourn to Hell, but one that had brought both brothers added comfort once Dean returned.

He’d fallen asleep with Dean, but when Sam opened his eyes, he was in the middle of what appeared to be a suburban shopping mall.

“What the Hell?” Sam muttered under his breath.

“That’s the problem with you Winchesters,” a deep voice came from next to Sam. “You swear by Hell far too easily.”

Sam turned, knowing before he saw the angel that it was Uriel addressing him. It was just Sam’s luck that he had the gruff Uriel rather than the more friendly Castiel.

“Why did you bring me here?” Sam demanded, ignoring the comment. He couldn’t afford to mouth off too much to Uriel, but felt he had a right to know what was going on.

Uriel looked at Sam in disgust. “Your relationship with your brother is an abomination.”

“I’m not sure that’s for you to decide,” Sam carefully replied. Uriel was not an entity to piss off. “God authorized Dean’s salvation from Hell, knowing that we were lovers.”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” Uriel intoned. Sam would have found the statement funny, given who was uttering it, but Uriel clearly was not joking. “But we have some flexibility in our orders.”

“And you plan on taking advantage of that,” Sam wasn’t exactly guessing.

“There are those that say there are souls destined to be together, despite the vessels they inhabit or the circumstances they’re in,” Uriel explained. His sneer was a clue that he didn’t agree. “If you and your brother are such souls, then you’ll have no trouble finding him.”

Sam looked around the mall, confused. “Dean’s here?” He knew that Dean would almost rather be back in Hell.

“He is here,” Uriel confirmed. “But not in the body that you’re used to. His soul has been temporarily placed in another vessel. Your task is to find him. If you and your brother are destined to be as one, that shouldn’t prove to be difficult.”

Knowing a test when he heard one, Sam pushed to find out what the risk was. “And if I fail?”

Uriel’s smile was not pleasant. “Then perhaps you Winchesters aren’t the soldiers we’re looking for.”

Sam didn’t waste time protesting the implied threat. Breathing deeply to calm himself, he reached for that inner talent that made demon hunting easier. Just as he felt the tingle that told him he’d tapped that resource, however, it was suddenly muffled.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Uriel waved a finger at Sam. “There will be no using those demon gifts of yours. You have an hour before the mall closes, Sam. You’d better get started.”

And then Uriel was gone.

“Great,” Sam muttered. “Just great.”

He tried not to think what the angel would do if Sam didn’t find Dean. With no plan, Sam started walking, hoping his feet would take him to the right place. The problem was that the Winchesters didn’t spend much time at shopping malls. Sam had a little when he’d been with Jessica, but that had been a lifetime ago. Dean had always hated the places, giving Sam no reference to where Dean might go even if he was in his own body.

As he wandered the mall, Sam’s eyes searched everyone he passed. He wasn’t expecting to see a familiar set of green eyes looking back at him; Uriel had made it clear that Dean wasn’t in his own body. Instead, Sam was looking for a glimmer of Dean’s personality encased in a stranger’s form.

Sam’s footsteps took him to the food court and he smiled in spite of the seriousness of the situation. Food had always been important to Dean, so there was a chance that he’d head towards it, even if in another body.

With less than an hour to closing, the food court was sparsely populated. Of to the side, Sam saw a young tough leaning against the counter of one of the Asian fast food restaurants that surrounded the seating area. The man was about Sam’s age and dressed in a leather coat. The stranger was good-looking and obviously knew it, from the way he was flirting outrageously with the adolescents behind the counter.

It took only a moment for Sam to discount the man as a possibility. It was too obvious and, besides, he knew that Dean’s bad boy, woman-chasing persona was a façade. Dean was deeper than he appeared.

Sam wasn’t any closer to finding Dean, but he’d eliminated at least one possibility and the ease of that decision gave him confidence. Sam continued the search.

The next possibility to give him pause was the sight of a fireman speaking to a policeman. Sam was close enough to overhear the conversation, something to do with a building code violation. Both fire fighters and cops were iconic heroic figures, but that was the problem. Dean was a hero, there was no doubt about it, but he didn’t need the trappings. In fact, Dean would probably hate the type of attention that wearing a uniform for real would bring. That meant two more people that weren’t Dean.

Sam took a nervous glance at his watch. A half an hour had gone by; he only had thirty minutes left to find his brother. 

With a growing sense of desperation, Sam left the food court behind and started his wandering again. All around him, he saw clerks in the stores, using the quiet of near-closing to tidy up. Sam didn’t bother to go into the stores to check if any of the people working there were his brother. He couldn’t imagine Dean, no matter what incarnation he was in, spending time doing any of those types of chores.

The sound of a wail caught Sam’s attention. He realized that he was near a toy store and as he approached, he could see that a young boy was on the floor right outside, kicking and screaming for all he was worth. A young woman hovered over him, presumably the mother.

“Mickey, sweetie, please stop that,” the woman pleaded with her child. “You know that Mommy can’t afford that toy car. There’s another one that’s almost as nice and it doesn’t cost nearly as much.”

Sam was drawn to the two, but not because of the boy. Dean never would have pitched a hissy fit over a toy, especially if was something their dad indicated that they couldn’t afford. Instead, Sam studied the woman carefully. Dean would be mortified at having his soul housed in a woman’s body, which made it exactly the kind of thing that Uriel would do. More so, Dean had spent his life taking care of Sam; the role of a mother was natural to him. Sam’s earliest memories of his caretaker had always been of Dean, not their father.

“All right, all right,” the mother gave in with a sigh. “You can have the car you want.”

The little boy’s shrieks stopped and he sat up to give his mother a hug. “Pwomise?”

“Promise,” she smiled at her son’s affection. “Now, let’s go get my big boy his toy.”

That decided Sam. Dean had taken care of him when they were young, but not coddled him. Not like that, anyway.

Sam continued his search, the minutes ticking away. Uriel had stacked the deck against him by giving Sam so much ground to cover and a comparatively little span of time in which to do it. It hardly seemed fair or the kind of stunt that an angel would pull.

“Attention mall shoppers,” a prerecorded voice came over the intercom. “We’ll be closing in five minutes.”

“Damn,” Sam muttered. 

Movement caught Sam’s eye. He turned his head and discovered that he was outside of a pet store. It had a large window which showcased three puppies. They were of different breeds and sizes, with one puppy being much larger than the other two. At first, Sam thought the three puppies were playing, but then he realized that the roughhousing was a little too rough. 

While Sam watched, the largest puppy sent the medium-sized puppy flying across the enclosure. Before the bully could follow-up, the smallest of the three launched himself at the offending puppy, growling with a ferocity that belied its small size. The large puppy ended up whining and cowering in the corner. The small puppy went back to the medium-sized one and licked its ear, all while glaring at the perpetrator with an all too familiar expression.

“Oh, Dean,” Sam laughed with relief. Thinking back, he realized that Uriel had indicated that Dean would be in a different body, but had carefully not said that it would be a human one. It was a sneaky thing to do — and yet another way that angels were turning out to be less glorious than Sam had always believed.

Sam walked into the store, ignoring the disgruntled looks of the people that worked there; clearly they weren’t happy about having a customer so near to closing. 

“How much is that puppy in the window?” Sam asked, grinning.

“Which one,” the nearest clerk asked sullenly. “The German Shepherd or one of the Cockapoos?”

Sam’s grin got wider. A Cockapoo? With that kind of sense of humor, maybe Uriel wasn’t quite the ass that Sam thought he was. “The Cockapoo, the smaller one.”

After sighing hugely, the sales clerk got out the key and opened the enclosure from the back. Sam heard the puppy growl as the clerk grabbed it by the back of the neck.

“Huh, normally this little guy’s a lot friendlier,” the clerk told Sam as he handed the puppy over. “He must be tired because it’s, like, so late and all.”

Sam ignored the young man’s hint and gently cradled the puppy to his chest. As soon as he held it, the puppy stopped growling and immediately started yipping in excitement and licking Sam’s chin. 

“Hey there, Dean,” Sam spoke to the puppy happily. “I’m glad to see you too.”

Before Sam could even wonder how he was going to prove his success to Uriel, he abruptly woke up. He was no longer in a shopping mall, but in a crummy motel bed, curled up with a warmth that was familiar in weight and scent. Dean, in his own body. Relieved, Sam buried his face into Dean’s hair. He didn’t know if it was a dream or not; he only knew that he was glad to have his brother back.

“Sammy?” Dean’s voice sounded sleepy as he peered up at his brother. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I am,” Sam replied. He kissed Dean again, reveling in the fact that he’d just proved to Uriel that their bond was more than physical.

“Hey,” Dean commented when the kiss ended. “What’s gotten into you? I thought I was the hound dog in this relationship?”

Sam laughed out loud. “Oh, man. You have absolutely no idea, Dean.”

He decided to tell Dean about the experience the next day. At the moment, they had more important things to do.

~the end~


End file.
